San Fran Clothing Company Uses Female Comedians Instead of Models

San Francisco-based clothing company Betabrand is known for its attention-grabbing stunts. Positioning themselves as a Kickstarter for fashion, their customers crowdfund clothing like Dress Pant Yoga Pants, "Gay Jeans" that unveil rainbow threads with multiple wears, and even the zip-up, one-piece Suitsy. But here's one stunt we can all get behind: Hiring hilarious female comedians and comedy writers as models.

The company's Fall Comedy Collection features 14 funny ladies modeling quirky items like the 3D Dress, the Brain-Scan Dress, and the Nauseating Holiday Skirt. Some of them are available for purchase, while others are still in the crowdfunding phase. Betabrand's website features interviews with each model, complete with silly jokes and actual discussion of the work they do when they're not posing.

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Betabrand made waves this past spring by casting female PhDs to show off their wares, which was a hit online. "We thought the next logical progression in highly intelligent women would be comedic writers and stand-up comics," says content producer Liz Rossof, who crafted the comedy collection. "Because arguably it takes just about the same amount of brains to write comedy well." In fact, Rossof says, a number of this fall's models had abandoned pursuing a graduate degree in order to pursue their passion for comedy.

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Photo: Betabrand

Since it was founded five years ago, Betabrand has never once gone through an agency to hire a model, instead recruiting friends, family, and community members. "We want to [feature] genuine people feeling comfortable and feeling themselves in their clothing," Rossof says. The company also has a "Model Citizen" app that lets customers upload photos of themselves modeling Betabrand clothes to get a discount on future purchases. In the future, Rossof says, the company would like to only rely on its customers as models.